


Interchange

by thegoddesskym



Category: DCU, Teen Titans - All Media Types, Titans (Comics)
Genre: Gen, Loss of Powers, Power Swap
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-11
Updated: 2020-10-11
Packaged: 2021-03-08 00:53:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,065
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26956873
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thegoddesskym/pseuds/thegoddesskym
Summary: The Titans fight a villain, something goes wrong, they still win. So far, so good.Only, the fight has unexpected consequences and Wally is not a fan.Or: a Titans power swap AU feat. a lot of running into walls
Relationships: Garth & Dick Grayson & Roy Harper & Donna Troy & Wally West, Lilith Clay & Wally West
Comments: 15
Kudos: 87





	Interchange

**Author's Note:**

> Hi there,
> 
> This short little story tells a tale about the Titans swapping their powers for a day and the way they (very unsuccesfully) deal with it. It features the team from Rebirth and a lot of chaos. 
> 
> I hope you enjoy :)

Wally first figured out that something wasn’t right during dinner.

The Titans had just come in from a tiring fight with a new villain and Wally had been starving. So they ordered a bunch of pizzas and sprawled on the living room floor to munch on them.

Roy was telling Garth and Lilith a story about a villain he once met, laughing loudly and waving his slice of pizza around. One of the mushrooms was making its way downwards of the slice and towards the ground and Wally watched in fascination, wondering whether or not he should catch it. He decided he was too tired to move and let gravity do his thing, watching as the entire topping slid off and landed on the floor.

Roy abruptly cut himself off and stared at the ground in shock, while Garth and Lilith dissolved into giggles. Donna laughed loudly from next Wally, opening another box and reaching around him to offer it.

“Here, take another slice”, she said, placing the box in Wally’s lap.

“Nah, thanks, I’m full”, Wally waved her off and pushed the box towards the others.

It went quiet. Lilith was looking at him strangely, sipping loudly from her cup.

Then Roy laughed “Are you feeling alright?”

“Yeah, why?”

“Because _you_ just said you weren’t _hungry_ ”, Roy explained.

Wally blinked. He had said that. Strangely, he had also meant it. He felt warm and full and slightly sleepy. It was a feeling he normally didn’t get after just half a pizza, especially not after he spend most of the afternoon using his speed. Weird.

“Well”, he said. “I’m not.”

“I am”, Dick declared and reached for the open box, pulling it towards him. And then Wally watched bemused as he downed three slices in a matter of seconds.

“Wow, Dick, do they not feed you in Gotham?”, Donna asked.

“If I had to eat Dick’s cooking, I too would prefer to starve”, Roy said.

Dick gave him the middle finger and reached for a fourth slice. “Shut up Roy, at least I know how to cook.”

Roy made an offended noise and Garth patted him on the shoulder in sympathy. Then he turned towards Dick. “You should probably not eat that fast”, he advised, passing over a pack of tissues. “And you have sauce on your chin.”

Wally turned away from his friend’s banter and slowly stood up, stretching his arms over his head. The earlier fight had taken a toll on him and heaviness was beginning to settle into his arms and legs.

Intending to take a short trip to the kitchen to refill his cup and stretch his legs, Wally took a running step forward, activating his speed.

Or he tried to.

Instead he pulled up short, the muscles in his leg aching like he had just tried to run a marathon the normal way. His knees buckled and he went down hard.

He was laying spread eagle on the ground, face digging into the soft carpet of the living room. Everything was hurting. His legs, his head, his pride.

“Wally, are you alright?”, Donna’s concerned face came into view. She was kneeling next to him, one hand hovering over his head as if she was trying to check him.

Wally pushed himself into a kneeling position and nodded slightly. “Yeah, just lost the balance or something”, he said, trying to be reassuring but he could tell that Donna didn’t believe him.

“Something is wrong”, Lilith said quietly.

Wally turned to find her looking at her with the same look as before. A mixture between concern and contemplation.

“What is it?”, Donna asked, she placed a hand on his forehead, checking his temperature.

“I’m not sick”, he said, brushing her hand off and standing up fully. His leg muscles were still cramping slightly, so he swayed a bit before sitting down on the nearest sofa.

“Sure”, Roy said. “You barely ate and now you can barely stand. That’s definitely normal.”

“You tried to use your speed just now, right?”, Lilith asked. “And it didn’t work?”

Wally nodded shortly. He tried vibrating his hand, but it immediately cramped up and he dropped it. This wasn’t good at all. He could feel his friend’s eyes on him, they all looked concerned.

“Maybe it’s because you didn’t eat enough?”, Dick proposed. “Your energy storage could be too low, so your body cramps up and refuses to work.”

That couldn’t be it. Wally knew what it felt like when he was running low on energy and this wasn’t that. It felt more like he was trying to make a muscle work that just wasn’t there. As if is access to the speed force was just _gone._

Lilith shifted her contemplative look from Wally to Dick, who was still eating. It looked like he barely noticed he was doing it anymore, because he was focused on Wally’s hand.

“Dick, will you please stop eating, your best friend is having a crisis”, Donna said.

“Sorry, I’m just really hungry”, Dick apologized, dropping the pizza and turning his full focus towards Wally. “Any idea how this could have happened? Did it happen before?”

Wally sighed and let himself sink down into the cushions. He shook his head.

It was quite for a bit while they all thought things through. The closest explanation Wally had for this was that he had truly overexerted himself earlier. He couldn’t explain it to himself otherwise. The speed force couldn’t just disappear, and there was nothing or no-one they had encountered today that could block his access. There was only that annoying villain, but her powers had focused on changing the composition of objects or something.

“Did you two switch metabolic systems or something?”, Garth asked suddenly. “The villain was able to switch the composition of objects around, right. She turned a wall into steel and made the steel into stone in return. Maybe she can do the same with organic things?”

“Well, she did get a few hits in on us, so they could have switched something around without us noticing”, Lilith proposed. “Something has been bothering me since the fight.”

“Are you saying, we could have switched organs?”, Dick asked. He looked genuinely worried and poked his own stomach, as if to test if something was different. Admittedly, the thought was unsettling, but it didn’t seem to be the correct answer to Wally.

Wally’s metabolism was so high because of the speed force, not his because of his body.

“Right”, Garth said and nodded to him. “Maybe you switched abilities then, it would increase Dick’s metabolism a lot.” Wally frowned. He could have sworn he hadn’t said that out loud. The other’s nodded in understanding.

“Wait, are you saying, Dick has my speed now?”, Wally asked, just to be sure.

“Let’s find out”, Donna announced. “Dick, please try to move as fast as you can.”

Dick shrugged, stood up and then he waved his hands around for a bit. Nothing was happening, Roy started to snicker and even Wally had to crack a smile. “Shut up”, Dick muttered and took a half step towards Roy, intend on shoving him off his sofa. Then he was gone, followed by a gust of wind, a short crackle and a loud crash coming from the kitchen.

“OW!”

When the Titans arrived in the kitchen, they found their leader sprawled across the floor, surrounded by the contents of a now destroyed cabinet. Wally couldn’t help it, he started to laugh loudly. And maybe slightly hysterically.

* * *

It all derailed from there. Apparently, not only had Dick and Wally been hit by the villain’s rays but so had all of them.

The next one to discover that something was decidedly not right was Roy, who ripped the door clean off the bathroom and then launched himself into the ceiling in shock.

He had then proceeded to bench press the sofa with Wally on it.

Donna had quickly discovered her loss of strength. To say she wasn’t happy with the afternoon’s proceedings would be an understatement.

Lilith later flooded the bathroom and the adjacent living room, when she got startled by a spider. Garth tried to help get rid of it and promptly failed. This was when they learnt that they, too, had switched abilities.

“So you were reading my mind earlier about the speed force!”, Wally exclaimed. “I knew I hadn’t said that out loud!”

Garth rubbed his head. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to.”

Wally waved him off. It really wasn’t a problem. He was used to working on a team with a powerful mind reader and if Garth really got those abilities, then he probably couldn’t control them.

“It also explains why everything has been feeling so off, lately. It’s because I wasn’t really able to feel anything from you guys. And because I don’t actively read you all the time, I also didn’t notice at first”, Lilith explained.

Donna sat down in a huff. “Well, this is it for a relaxing weekend.”

* * *

The speed force wasn’t back the next morning. Wally could deal with that. Really, he could.

After the Titans had gone to bed in the hopes of curing the problem with sleep, they had went about figuring out how it happened the next morning.

The villain they had fought had indeed been able to switch things between two objects, including organic things. Apparently stuff like metagenes or the speed force were things like that. They had also learnt that it would take approximately a day for the switch to loose effect and for things to slowly turn back to normal. Until then the Titans would keep this between themselves, no reason to alarm anyone when the problem would solve itself. (Truthfully, they just didn’t want to deal with an overprotective Batman.)

So they told everyone that there was a problem at the Tower and they were staying in to fix it. Donna contacted Karen and told her to field any incoming calls towards the Justice League. None of them were in any state to fight at the moment.

“It’s only a day, it will be fine”, Dick had tried to reassure Wally when they ate breakfast together later. Then he shoved a sandwich into his mouth and accidentally vibrated himself through the chair. Garth choked on his orange juice and Roy crushed a glass.

Wally rolled his eyes and helped him back up. Of course Dick would think that, he had gotten the better deal out of it. Because Dick now had superpowers and Wally didn’t.

Speaking of. “What exactly did I get in return?”, Wally asked. As far as he was concerned, the trade was completely unbalanced. Dick had gotten Wally’s powers, powers he had taken years to perfect and hone to the level they were at now. It was like Dick just got handed a Level 50 skill right after starting the game. And Wally had nothing. It was completely unfair.

The others all had gotten at least something in return. Roy had Donna’s strength, Lilith had Garth’s hydrokinesis and Garth had Lilith’s Telepathy. The only one else who had nothing so far was Donna.

The way the villain’s power worked was that the two objects always had to balance each other out. That meant that in order for Dick to receive something from Wally, Wally had to get something back. A certain skill or something.

“That is a good question”, Dick said. “Let’s find out.”

Together the six of them made their way to one of the training rooms. It was the biggest one in the tower and featured a small track for Wally to run on. There were also a few training dummies standing in one corner, which Dick dragged into the middle of the room.

“So, let’s see what skill you got from me”, Dick announced and motioned for Wally to stand in front of the dummies.

Slightly unsure, Wally did as he was told. He contemplated the dummies for a short while before turning to his friend. “What exactly am I supposed to do?”, he asked.

Dick sighed. “I dunno. Hit it? Kick it? Do a handstand?”

Seeing as hitting and kicking were also skills Wally already possessed, he opted for the handstand. Now, Wally was sure he could do one if he wanted to, he just never really did. But he certainly couldn’t do them as effortlessly as Dick did, so it wouldn’t hurt to try.

He took a few steps backwards and prepared to go all out, when Lilith stopped him. “Maybe you should warm up first?”, she proposed.

That was indeed a good idea so he did that.

The handstand afterwards wasn’t a real success and he wobbled quite a bit. Wally was used to using his legs more than his arms, so he wasn’t really used to holding his whole body up with them like this. Especially with as much grace as a certain someone. Wally’s arms stated to ache and his shirt had ridden over his red face. At least he didn’t have to witness this shame.

Roy and Donna clapped loudly and cheered for him from the sidelines whenever Wally nearly toppled.

Dick was standing next to him, with a supportive hold. “Well, I guess that’s not it.”

“You think?”, Wally grumbled.

Next they tried a few other gymnastic routines, all of which failed horribly, much to Dick and Roy’s amusement.

It took them well into the morning for Wally to call it quits. He was exhausted. And embarrassed. And his best friends were laughing at him, and he couldn’t let that sit.

“It’s your turn”, he announced and dragged Dick towards the running track. They passed Roy who was trying to stop Donna from shooting into her own foot. Wally snagged him by the back of his shirt and dragged him after them.

Confused, Dick stared at the track. “But I already know which skill I got.”

Wally huffed, annoyed. “Of course, but it is slightly painful to watch you with it. So you two will learn.”

“Why? We will be back to normal by tomorrow”, Dick protested. Roy nodded in agreement.

Wally turned towards him with a conspiratorial smirk. “Don’t you want to be able to control a superpower?”

Dick frowned at him. “Not really. I’m perfectly fine without one.”

Internally, Wally rolled his eyes. Of course he knew that. Outwardly he grinned, causing Dick to deepen his frown.

Oh no, he was onto him.

He leaned forward and placed both hands on his best friend’s shoulders. “But aren’t you at least a little bit curious. Think of all the positive effects this could have for future teamwork, if you have first-hand experience of how my speed works.”

Dick sighed and pushed him off. “Alright, what do I do?”

Wally instructed Dick on how to stand and how to focus his speed. Then he turned towards Roy. If he got Donna’s enhanced strength he probably also had her enhanced speed, so he would have to learn how to control that as well. And, well, Wally looked forward to seeing them fail.

Garth passed by them then. “You’re mean”, he muttered, smirked and then continued on towards Lilith, who was busy flooding yet another bathroom. Seemed like they were doing fine.

Wally used that opportunity to look for what Donna was up to. She had moved on from the arrows and was now throwing the arrows at on one of the training dummies. Seems she had gotten that skill from Roy.

He turned Dick and Roy and told them to run to the end of the track and stop.

Dick, of course, didn’t stop and crashed into the opposite wall.

Roy barreled right through it.

It took them several tries until they managed to go one lap without careening off the track and by that point Wally was on the floor in hysterics.

Dick shoved him to the ground and then sat down next to him with a plate of sandwiches. “You are evil and I can’t believe you would find joy in your best friend’s pain.”

Wally laughed and snagged a sandwich. “You made me do all those horrible gymnastics even though you knew I didn’t get anything from you!”

“Don’t worry, I won’t show Linda the recording.”

Wally hit Dick for that and snagged another sandwich.

“Give that back, you aren’t even hungry!”

* * *

It was early afternoon when Wally emerged from the training room and flopped down on the sofa. His entire body was hurting once again. Dick had insisted they try out a few fighting techniques and had proceeded to kick the shit out of him

Maybe Wally should invest in more training without speed.

Roy came into the room then and plopped down next to him. He was covered in plaster and dust and left a small puddle of bathroom water on the floor. “You look like shit”, he said.

“That’s rich coming from you.”

“Still not back to normal?”, Roy asked. He handed Wally a glass of water and Wally gratefully accepted. At least one of his friends was nice to him.

He shook is head in answer and groaned pitifully.

“Yeah, me neither. It’s weird, isn’t it?”

“Yes”, he groaned. “It’s awful. I feel like my entire body is just so much heavier than normal. It sucks.”

Roy patted him on the shoulder.

Then Wally’s phone rang with Barry’s number.

It took a second before Wally understood what was happening and in a panic he fumbled with the phone before he pressed it to his ear. He had totally forgotten about that.

“Hi, Wally”, Barry said.

“Barry, hi. Sorry I totally forgot about lunch, I’m so sorry!”

Barry laughed slightly. “Yeah, I figured, don’t worry about it. Something came up anyway.” Wally closed his eyes in relief. Barry wasn’t mad, thankfully. They had been supposed to meet up for lunch today because they had both been busy the last few weeks and had wanted to catch up. It still made him feel bad. If it hadn’t been for the villain and his speed being gone he wouldn’t have been so distracted.

It was quiet on the other end for a bit and Wally wondered if he should say something. Then Barry cleared his throat. “Well, I heard that you guys ran into a bit of a problem yesterday and weren’t available today because of it. I just wanted to know if everything is alright… with you?”

“Uhhhh….”, Wally turned a questioning look towards Roy, who shrugged unhelpfully. “Yes?”

“Wally, what’s wrong?”, Barry sounded concerned. “Should I come over? Is everybody alright?”

“No, no, everything’s fine. There is nothing wrong here! You have no reason to worry!”

It was quiet again and Wally pressed his eyes shut, hoping Barry would believe him.

Then “I’m coming over.” Barry hung up and Wally let out a panicked shout.

Roy jolted out of his seat, taking in the mess they had left behind yesterday. The living room still had water damage, the broken door from the bathroom was just lying there and the kitchen was a total mess. Not to mention that they weren’t exactly in the best shape themselves.

“He will be here any second, I’ll get the others, you distract him!”, Wally shouted. Roy nodded.

Wally automatically went to speed down into the training hall but cramped up and fell to his knees almost immediately. Roy looked down at him.

“Other way around?”, he offered and Wally sheepishly nodded.

Roy sped off, crashing into the stairwell and sailing down two flights of stairs. Wally winced.

“I’m fine!”, Roy shouted up and then more crashing ensued as he ran further.

The doorbell rang and Wally saw his life flash before his eyes. Barry was going to actually murder him if he found out.

* * *

“Hi, Barry!”, Wally cheerfully ripped open the door, placing himself in such a way that Barry couldn’t look further into the living space of the Tower.

Barry was standing there in his full Flash outfit and looked genuinely worried as he took him in. Wally realized that he was still wearing his slightly sweaty and dusty work-out clothes. “You are not alright”, he declared.

“No, I am! Everything is perfect, Barry. You don’t need to be here, please leave”, he tried his best to smile.

There was a rush of displaced air and before Wally knew what had happened, Barry was standing in the destroyed living room. Dammit, Wally had forgotten what it was like not being able to follow him with his eyes.

He rushed after Barry with normal speed, which his uncle of course noticed and narrowed his eyes at.

“I’m serious, Wally. Something is wrong, I can tell. I’m aware you may have not been able to say anything over the phone but I know you. I also know that you aren’t acting like yourself right know. What happened?”

Barry took a step towards him and lay a comforting hand on his shoulder. Wally stood perfectly still. He couldn’t explain this. Where were the others when you needed them.

As if on cue, the rest of the Titans stumbled into the living room. Barry got distracted by their arrival and Wally used that to quickly hide behind Lilith.

“Hello, Barry. We didn’t know you were visiting”, Donna said. She crossed her arms.

Barry blinked in confusion. “Yeah, uh, Wally didn’t show up for lunch and I got worried. What happened here? Did you get attacked?” He motioned around the living room.

They shook their heads in unison.

Barry looked at them strangely. Wally couldn’t really blame him. They were looking were suspect right now. Dick had a nasty bruise forming on his forehead from where he had ran into the wall, Donna’s hair was in wild disarray, Roy was still covered in plaster, Garth visibly had a migraine and Lilith was completely soaking wet.

But he just didn’t want Barry to know he had lost the speed force. That was both super embarrassing and would worry him way too much. No one was supposed to know. If word got out that the Titans were so severely incapacitated right now, it would be … bad.

Also, it would mean the Justice League getting involved and, really, none of them wanted that.

“Barry, really. Everything is fine. We just kept Wally super occupied today, so that’s why he forgot. Sorry about that”, Dick tried to calm Barry down. “Also, there was a problem with the tubing in the bathroom, that is why everything is so … wet. And we were renovating downstairs.”

Slowly, Barry nodded. “Alright. I trust you to tell me when something is bothering you”, he told Wally. Then he said his good-byes and turned to leave again.

“ _Sorry again, for worrying you. But as Nightwing said, everything is fine. Bye, Uncle Barry!”_ , Wally quickly said.

It was like the whole room froze. The Titans stared at him in horror, Roy made a strangled ‘abort’ motion with his hand and Barry just stared at him shocked.

“Since when do you speak French?”, Barry asked bewildered.

“Uhh… I was learning?”, Wally stammered out. “Surprise?”

Barry just nodded slowly, turned and then left quickly.

Wally sagged against the wall. That was a close one.

“Wally, seriously. Since when do you speak French?”, Donna asked.

“He doesn’t”, Garth answered for him. ‘Piss off, Garth’, he thought at him and Garth winced apologetically.

“I speak French”, Dick said. “Except right now, I didn’t understand a word you just said.”

Wally thumped his head against the wall. Seriously. Everybody else got a cool skill in return and Wally got Dick’s understanding of the French language. Of all things, _French_? Dick could do so many amazing things, but nooo, Wally had to get the most boring one. What was he supposed to do with that? A language couldn’t kick someone’s ass.

“See it positive, now you can order us food from that fancy place we like”, Donna said.

“ _I want this day to be over_ ”, Wally grumbled and sat down on the sofa.

“What?”, Dick asked.

“I said you look stupid”, Wally told him.

The Titans all crowded around the sofas and sighed in exhaustion. “Do you think he believed us?”, Roy asked, referring to Barry.

The all broke out into laughter.

“Definitely not”, Wally said.

“Well, you know what that means”, Roy grumbled. “Let’s scram before they get back.”

**Author's Note:**

> I hope you liked that, tell me if you did or didn't, that would mean a lot.
> 
> You can also find me on [tumblr](https://the-goddess-kym.tumblr.com/). 
> 
> Have a nice day :)


End file.
